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Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

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Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#41

Post by onion2k »

BurningFrog wrote: post #31
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Often a creator doesn't see benifits of their material til many decades after Is this the common case? It would seem logical that most content makes the most amount of money soon after it comes out. I think for many kinds of content, the first week makes about as much as the rest of the lifetime of sales. And even in the rare case where some content becomes rediscovered after the 30 years, the creator simply needs t…

Yeah, I can't think of a single example. Usually, I'd guess/assume/overconfidently assert that 90% of revenue happens in the first 5 years. Though I'm open to being corrected.

Where authors make money from their books they make it within a few years of publication. Where they make money from an adaption of their book it can be decades later. For example, Philip K Dick wrote Minority Report in 1956 but the film wasn't made until 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_works_b...). Lord of the Rings was written in 1937 and made in to the major films in 2001. More recently Game Of Thrones took 15 years or so before being adapted for TV.

Those authors deserve a decent price for the film rights to their work. 30 year copyrights would significantly change that.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#42

Post by bcrosby95 »

judge2020 wrote: post #39
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact number can be tuned but there is nothing wrong with being somewhat arbitrary. The age we let people drink is arbitrary. Why 18, why not 19 or 17. Its just a number picked to be good enough. >Don't forget some people might take years of thinking about a story before ever releasing it publicly. It applies as soon as you release it publicly. Copyright doesn't instantly apply as soon as an idea pops in to your…

> The age we let people drink is arbitrary Maybe this was childhood conditioning but I was told 21 is the general age where your brain is fully developed so that drinking alcohol doesn't affect your cognitive growth.

Mid 20's actually. Some earlier some later. Even as late as their early 30s.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#43

Post by stevekemp »

grawprog wrote: post #11
ghaff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That probably makes copyright renewals cost-effective for corporations making millions but not so for an author getting a nice $5k/yr annuity. (Or pick your numbers. But making cost a decision point for renewal definitely favors the big guys.)

Have the fee be based time but scale with profits. So that author making 5k/year's fees may only would only have the fee increase by a few hundred per renewal whereas a company making 500k/year would see their fees go up by a few thousand per renewal etc. As an example.

"Hollywood Accounting" just means that works will never generate a profit..

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#44

Post by stevekemp »

onion2k wrote: post #41
BurningFrog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I can't think of a single example. Usually, I'd guess/assume/overconfidently assert that 90% of revenue happens in the first 5 years. Though I'm open to being corrected.

Where authors make money from their books they make it within a few years of publication. Where they make money from an adaption of their book it can be decades later. For example, Philip K Dick wrote Minority Report in 1956 but the film wasn't made until 2002 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_works_b... ). Lord of the Rings was written in 1937 and made in to the major films in 2001. More recentl…

> Lord of the Rings was written in 1937 and made in to the major films in 2001.

Although the rights that permitted those films were sold in 1969.

Film rights are a particularly interesting case where they get sold and traded around potentially for decades before something is actually produced, if ever.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#45

Post by masonic »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #5

imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.

So, Star Wars (A New Hope) should have gone public domain 12 years ago?

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#46

Post by flanbiscuit »

baby wrote: post #35

I love zombies and I don’t really want to watch old movies. What are you guys list of best zombie movies? I’ve watched a ton in the emule days but unfortunately don’t know the name of most of these. My favorite weirdly is not a true zombie movie but a parody called shaun of the dead. Anyway I hope I’m starting a thread of good zombie movies :)

I just watched The Dead Don't Die which was directed by Jim Jarmusch. It was kinda weird and was more of a dark comedy. Not like Shaun, more subdued. Was interesting if you like his films

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8695030/

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#47

Post by TeMPOraL »

derekp7 wrote: post #32
marcosdumay wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, the more valuable content can in commercial use for longer. It is as large an obstacle to the hoarding and disappearing of content corporations do today as any alternative, so I'd go for the easiest, whatever that is.

I think the argument is that a corporate entity would be willing to lose a large amount of money by extending copyrights on their back catalog, if only to keep those works from competing with their current offerings that make them loads of money.

A strong enough exponent, and the costs of holding the old works back would very quickly eclipse the protected profits.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#48

Post by clarry »

thereisnospork wrote: post #36
jan888 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thirty years? Why have copyright at all? I've yet to hear a good argument that doesn't boil down to "because my business model deserves to be profitable." Intellectual property isn't a scarce resource. I look forward to the day we all exploit that. We'll find new business models, ones that take advantage of being able to build on all proir human knowledge, and we'll all be more productive because of it.

>"because my business model deserves to be profitable" Why have authors? Or poets? Or scientists? Or SWEs? we don't work for free. Or would you prefer to drive the aforementioned out of business.

> Why have authors?

Because someone needs something written, and they hire you to do it. Or because you want to write, and then others discover that they like what you write, and they want to help you write more. None of this requires copyright, and in fact copyright make some works illegal to author, therefore it restricts authorship.

> Or poets?

As above.

> Or scientists?

Someone needs research done. Someone wants to do research. Someone wants to fund research. None of this requires copyright.

> Or SWEs?

"Hey I need this software, can you write it for me? Here's how much I'm willing to pay for it."

Copyright has never been relevant in my career as a software developer. If anything, developers giving up their exclusive rights via free software licenses has been a massive boost for the entire field and everyone is building products atop someone else's work. That's a good thing!

I only with copyright didn't restrict our field so much.

> we don't work for free.

Indeed, someone needs my labor and they pay for it. Pretty simple.

> Or would you prefer to drive the aforementioned out of business.

Strawman. GP argued against particular business models that are reliant on copyright. That's not an argument against these entire fields, and indeed most of them would continue to exist without copyright.

But yes; I'm ok with letting people with poor business models go out of business.

Abandoning copyright would enable other business models that are currently difficult or impossible to conduct legally. I think the status quo is bad, because there are many services I can think of that would benefit end users (and which I would pay for) but which are not going to happen because of copyright.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#49

Post by tsimionescu »

DrPhish wrote: post #7
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #5

imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.

I think its fair that renewals would be allowed beyond that, but that the cost of doing so should increase on an exponential scale. That way the value of keeping a thing copyrighted would eventually be eclipsed by its value as a public property, fulfilling the social contract of limited protection in exchange for eventual public ownership.

No, I think that is the opposite of what makes sense. We should allow popular properties that have already provided good profits for their creators to lapse as soon as possible into the public domain, since they have the largest impact on culture, and the lowest impact on their creators' livelihoods.

Mickey Mouse is much more relevant, would lead to much more creative work, and would hurt Disney much less if it were public than making some song by some band which at best has a small dedicated following public.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#50

Post by danbolt »

fouc wrote: post #24
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #5

imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.

A number like 30 is far too arbitrary. How can we come up with a less arbitrary approach? Don't forget some people might take years of thinking about a story before ever releasing it publicly. So the cost of creation can vary quite a bit, picking a fixed number ends up being somewhat unfair to many of the creators.

Doesn't copyright usually start from date of publication? It changes a bit for unpublished works, but otherwise a long gestation period doesn't eat into the duration of exclusivity. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term#Length_of_copyr...

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